Julie lifts her arms and pirouettes, the long prairie dress swirling nicely. Then another, and another and another, to the front edge of the Porch which, Matt remembers, is sandy and treacherous. He reads the caution in the cant of her head. Julie looks down at that edge, plants a boot, and leans back in retreat, but it looks to Matt that his mother’s boot is the jackhammer that parts the crumbly sandstone, and down she goes.
In free fall.
At first her body descends in near perfect perpendicularity, like a kid stepping off a diving board and trying not to splash. Her dress billows and her hair lifts. But then she bursts into motion, arms and legs clawing at the air as she crumples into the boulders below. Some of the crowd realize what has happened and close around her.
Matt takes Laurel’s hand and they run through the swaying acid-jam dancers toward the Porch.
36
Julie is wide-eyed and breathing hard, bent over a boulder, one granny-booted leg twisted at a terrible angle. She’s babbling nonsense, apparently not aware of what has happened. No blood, Matt sees. Just his broken, LSD-tripping, getting-sober-from-the-dragon-balls, former farm girl mom.
It takes the Fire Department ambulance and cops nearly twenty minutes to show up. Two medics, with help from Matt and Laurel, get burbling-sobbing-laughing Julie onto a gurney then into the vehicle.
Matt and Laurel are about to get in too, when a hand clamps over Matt’s shoulder from behind and he turns to face Furlong.
“You’re under arrest for conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, public endangerment, and mayhem.”
He spins Matt against the ambulance and handcuffs him. Laurel screams at Furlong and Julie breaks into “I’m a Believer,” and the hippies hurl insults at Furlong while pelting him with fruit and sandwiches, much of which hits Matt as the burly sergeant drags him toward Moby Cop.
Matt sits inside with ten young people, most of whom seem to be overdosed on something, probably LSD, which makes them incoherent but peaceful. Two are kissing and groping rather heavily. The others stare at Matt as if he’s an exotic zoo animal, or maybe an alien. It’s hot in here and the hippies stink and so does Matt and he’s furious at his mother when he hears the ambulance siren blare its way by.
Ten minutes later Furlong throws the back doors open. His hair is wet and his hula girl shirt is stained and his aviators are glazed with liquids.
He points at Matt: “Out.”
Matt climbs over the zoned-out hippies and the ardent couple and lands — still handcuffed — on the dirt in front of Furlong.
“Did Johnny Grail tell you what was on those invites? If so, he’ll confess and you’ll be processed into Juvenile Hall within twenty-four hours. If not, you’re every bit as stupid as you look.”
“No sir, he didn’t,” Matt says, furious at Johnny now, thinking that fucker.
“And I’m not as stupid as I look. I’ve been lied to and broken on by events. Like waves, broken on today.” Furlong raises his opaque glasses. “Matt, how many sunny orange invitation corners did you eat?”
“None.”
“And your pretty, bad-luck mom?”
Matt nods. “One I saw.”
“They took her to South Coast Hospital.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Furlong uncuffs him. “Everybody gets broken on, Matt. It’s what you do after that matters. You owe me.”
Matt and Laurel sit in the waiting room as the doctors cast Julie’s leg. She’s got a broken left femur and a broken left tibia and two cracked ribs. The good news is she landed feet first so her skull and spine were spared. The leg fractures are very fortunately not compound, and will not require setting.
The bad news — carried by Dr. Caroline Hoppe, whose white coat is stitched NEUROLOGY in red cursive letters — is that Julie may have ingested enough LSD to incur lasting brain damage. The doctor has seen it before, the brain “literally re-wired” by the powerful hallucinogen. Difficult to treat. Julie is neither coherent, nor aware of her surroundings.
Later, she is strapped into an ICU “overdose room” with barred windows and a door not openable from inside. No visitors allowed, unless accompanied by staff. She’s deep asleep, snoring lowly through the painkillers and tranquilizers. Her leg is in a full-length plaster cast that rests on a boom-mounted cushion.
The barred windows are large and overlook the twinkling blue Pacific.
Matt sits with her for hours, absently drawing in his sketchbook.
As his hands and eyes work, he thinks of Jazz. It bothers him that she doesn’t know about her mother. And it bothers him that he’s the only Anthony still at home to deal with Julie and her... well, what exactly was all that?
He gets good sketches of Marlon and Neldra Sungaard, and of Johnny Grail telling him about the Hessians. A decent Staich, and a Furlong throwing hippies into Moby Cop.
He stops and ponders how to depict his mother’s fall/slip/jump but can’t bring himself to picture it again. It hurts to imagine.
He has an early dinner at the Kalina residence, with Laurel’s parents and sister. Kai Kalina is a professor of sociology at the new UC Irvine. Marilyn Doss teaches in the English Department creative writing program. She’s published two novels and a collection of essays. Rose is finished with her freshman year at UC Santa Barbara, majoring in marine biology.
Matt sees that Laurel has her father’s rich Hawaiian coloring and her mother’s lovely face. Rose too. He wonders why different races don’t get married more, put together the best traits of each in their children. He tries to listen and talk through a thick haze of exhaustion and worry. He eats like a bear, and after seconds and dessert, escapes with Laurel to knock on doors before sunset.
After eighty-three more households, Matt pulls the Westfalia into the Kalina driveway once again. It’s almost ten o’clock.
“I’m going home to sleep,” he says. That’s a lie because he has to pack up and be out of his house by midnight.
“I’m exhausted too,” says Laurel. “But please kiss me.”
They kiss long and tenderly, with the hunger of the young. In his mind Matt sees the hippies making out in Moby Cop. His gonadal ache quickly returns. Laurel sets his hand on her left breast. It’s heavy and living and her breath catches, which makes the ache worse, and when he knows he’s about to explode he ends the kiss and hugs her.
“I love you,” he says.
“You lust me.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“See you tomorrow. I’ll be praying for Jazz and Julie tonight. And for you, too.”
“Get us lots of blessings and miracles.”
“Don’t make fun of things like that.”
“I don’t mean to. It just comes out.”
“You have a lot inside.”
“First it was Dad. Then Kyle. Then Jazz. Now Mom. There’s no one left.”
“They’re all alive and well, Matt. You’ll see. You’ll get them all back.”
“I want to believe you.”
“You have a true heart and I like you more than you know.”
The FOR RENT sign is up and the living room light is off, not as he left it. Nelson Pedley has been inside.
Julie has already taken some of Jazz’s things to Dodge City, but Matt takes a few more highlights from Jasmine’s room and loads them into the Westfalia. Like a lot of beach cottages, this house was rented furnished, so the big stuff stays. He picks out some clothes and shoes he’s seen her wear. Rolls up the Buffalo Springfield and Beatles and Tim Leary posters, loads a box of books and the jewelry from her dresser. Her diary. Her ukulele and the music book he gave her.